Valuing Others Above Yourselves

Message By Eddie DSouza on June 7, 2026

Passage: Philippians 2:1-11

Topics: Humility, Identity in Christ, Pride & Humility, The Glory of God, The Supremacy of Christ

Humility—Every Christian desires to obey God’s word to be humble. However, very few Christians can describe humility. What is humility? We know for sure that pride is the opposite of humility. In fact, there is little debate that pride is the beginning of all sin.[1] Based on that, one would automatically assume that humility is the greatest virtue. Yet it is not! Love is the greatest virtue.

Historically, the virtues have been categorized into four heads: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Christians have added to these the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. When it comes to the place of humility, Thomas Aquinas, a medieval monk and philosopher, says, “After the theological virtues, after the intellectual virtues which regard the reason itself, and after justice, especially legal justice, humility stands before all others.”[2] What that tells us is that humility is not number one on the list of virtues. It is not even among the top ten.

Today, we look at Phil 2:3, the second exhortation in our passage Phil 2:1–11, which teaches us to count others as more significant than ourselves. Paul says that we are to do so in humility. Christians have generally taken that to mean they must always put themselves lower than others and therefore never acknowledge themselves as of any value, because that would be boastfulness or pride.

Such action not only hurts the Christian but also hurts the church. So, we must understand what it means to be humble in this context.

Here is my plan for this sermon. First, we will look at the verse in question. Second, I will survey how humility was a vice before Christianity. Third, I will describe what humility is in the Bible. Finally, I will return to our verse and use it to give direction. A look at the verse, a pre-Christian understanding, a biblical view, and the application.

The Verse

First, let us look at the verse: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” The main point of this verse is that Christians must value others above themselves. This is opposed to doing things from selfish ambition or conceit.

Here is what you must understand. Humility is not counting others as more significant than yourselves. No! In humility count others. Or by humility count others. Humility is the instrument by which you count others as more significant than yourself. So, counting others is not the act of humility but the fruit of humility. Humility is required to do so. Doing so is not humility.

If we merely count others as more significant and do not do so in humility, then we have not obeyed this verse. So, our first task must be to understand what humility is, so that we may know how to act in humility and produce the fruit of humility.

The word for humility in this verse is “ταπεινοφροσύνη” (tapeinophrosunē). My teacher, John Piper, loved to tell us that words are dumb. Not dumb as in stupid; but dumb as in mute. Words by themselves cannot communicate meaning. Authors use words in a context. Same words can mean different things in other contexts by the same author. For example, Paul uses “ταπεινοφροσύνη” (tapeinophrosunē) in Col 2:18, 23, to mean asceticism. In that case, it is a heretic humility. But in Col 3:12, a few verses later, he says “Put on… humility ‘ταπεινοφροσύνη’ (tapeinophrosunē).” Do not “ταπεινοφροσύνη” (tapeinophrosunē). Put on “ταπεινοφροσύνη” (tapeinophrosunē). Here, Paul says in our verse, in humility “ταπεινοφροσύνη” (tapeinophrosunē), count others more significant than yourselves. Since we have determined that we must count others more significant than ourselves in humility, we now must attempt to discover the meaning of humility so that we can obey the command.

Before Christianity

Let us turn our attention briefly to what this word meant before Christianity. Here we run into trouble. There is only one place in recorded history where this word is used, but it does not mean humility; it means another word: pusillanimity. Pusillanimity is a bad thing. Both pre-Christian pagan writers and Christian writers have described pusillanimity as a bad disposition.

Pusillanimity is the deficiency of a virtuous behavior, magnanimity. Here is how the ancient writers described a good thing. A good thing was somewhere in the middle of two bad things. An excess of the good is bad; a deficiency of the good is bad. For example, you need Vitamin A. Vitamin A is good. If you do not have enough Vitamin A, you may be Vitamin A-deficient. But just because it is good, if you take in too much Vitamin A, it may lead to Vitamin A toxicity. There is a good in the middle, and the two extremes have either a deficiency or an excess.

Magnanimity is the good middle. The deficiency is pusillanimity. The excess is vanity. Magnanimity is the disposition of a person who is good at a certain task and rightly receives due honor that comes to him for his good work. He does not pretend that he does not deserve the honor, nor does he crave the honor. Pusillanimity is the deficiency. A person who is capable of doing good, but keeps saying he is not all that good, or keeps rejecting due honor, has a poor disposition. Vanity is the excess. A person who may or may not be capable of doing good, but desires honor or boasts about how well he can do something, has a poor disposition. You see, the one who is magnanimous is useful to society. When someone asks, “Can you help with task so and so?” They say, “Yes, I can.” Whereas the one who is pusillanimous says, “Oh! I am not good at it. How can I?” They are not useful to society because they have a misconstrued low view of their abilities. A vain person is also useless, because he may say “Of course, I can!” but in reality, cannot do it, or he is always saying, if you need any help with this, you know whom to contact. But he does not want to do the task, or he cannot do the task. He only likes the pleasure or honor of being known as able to do the task.

Now, as I said, the ancient writers did use the same word “ταπεινοφροσύνη” (tapeinophrosunē), but they did not mean humility. They meant pusillanimity. And they did not consider it a good thing; neither should we. In fact, the person who received one talent and hid it is described by ancient Christians as pusillanimous.

Biblical Humility

So with that in mind, let us turn to the Bible. The word “ταπεινοφροσύνη” (tapeinophrosunē) occurs seven times in the Bible. Twice it means the heretic humility. All other times, it is translated as humility. Each time it describes a person’s posture but does not tell us how to achieve it.

However, if we take the verb form of the word, we get somewhere. Our first challenge is that we know that both James and Peter command us to humble ourselves before the Lord (Jas 4:10; 1 Pet 5:6). The question still remains—how do we do that?

That makes two out of fourteen appearances of the verb form. Eleven of the instances appear in the passive form—will be humbled. It is almost like the way to be humble is to be humbled by someone. In all these cases, God humbles the proud. He brings the proud to the low state of being humbled. So, in that sense, there is not much you can do to make yourself humble.

I think one verse helps us: Matt 18:4. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Children of all people are not doing anything to make themselves humble. They just go about their business without thinking much about themselves. They do what they do. A humble person does not spend time looking in the mirror to see if he is humble or proud. He just does the next thing. He is happy to be praised; he accepts correction. He moves on.

Let us now put all these things together and make a few observations.

First, humility is an effect. Second, humility is also a command. Thus, humility is affected from within and without.

Since the humbling work of God is affected in man from without, we must ask when this happens. Isaiah 2:5–22 gives us an answer. I will not go through the whole section. However, let us zoom into v. 11. The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled, and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. In this passage of judgment and humbling, all those who raised up idols and exalted themselves as something before God by denying their need for God. Pride, in this case, is not acknowledging God. Thus, humility is a “creaturely virtue,” acknowledging that I am not God.[3] God alone is God. We are not. We put on masks and airs as if we were something. We create gods as if they were real. All of this is pride. Humility is acknowledging that I am not God. C.S. Lewis says, “We must not think Pride is something God forbids because He is offended at it, or that Humility is something He demands as due to His own dignity—as if God Himself was proud. He is not in the least worried about His dignity.”[4]

A question that remains is whether God’s humbling work is symmetrical in believers and unbelievers. For believers, we can be sure that God humbles us for our joy in him. It is to make us happy. All the discomfort of God’s humbling work is for his glory and our good. The day of the Lord comes at different times in different places in the Bible. There is the final day of the Lord when everyone is humbled before God. Look at Phil 2:9–11. Everyone will be humbled before the exalted Jesus on that day. But not everyone will rejoice that they are on their knees before Jesus. For believers, that great day happened on Calvary and took place in our lives when we believed. Some of us remember it distinctly. Some of us do not. But we love to bow before our Lord Jesus. Yet, a Christian is also commanded to be humble. There is an ongoing aspect for a believer.

So here is how I define humility, specifically Christian humility. Christian humility is a virtue by which a man has a low opinion of himself before God. Christian humility works out of a man, and it is by which he controls his impulses, will, and ambitions. This does not mean that a humble person always suppresses his ambition. No, he suppresses selfish ambition and gives his life to holy ambition.

Application

Let us now turn to applications and dispel some myths and false understandings.[5]

First, pleasure in being praised is not pride. God has made us to receive his praise. Well done is what we long to hear from him. A child loves to be patted on the back for doing a lesson well. A woman loves to be praised by her husband for her beauty. This is good because the pleasure does not lie in your value but because you have succeeded in pleasing someone who rightly sought to please. It is the right reward for the right action. This is magnanimity.

Second, vanity demands praise even when it is not deserved. It demands praise because it does not take pleasure in the praise from the person but makes it about themselves. Eyes have moved from the one who is to be pleased to oneself. The cure to vanity is not pride. Pride says I do not require any feedback. I do what I do. I do not care what people think about what I do. That is the devil’s cure for vanity. God’s cure for vanity is rightly receiving godly criticism—both good and bad. Well done; here is what can be improved.

Third, pusillanimity rejects deserved praise. It treats the pleasure of praise as sin. That is, it corrupts a good reward and treats it as an evil.

Fourth, words like “I am proud of you” are not a sin. They are merely expressions that say, “I have warm-hearted admiration for your achievement.”

Fifth, do not suppose that a humble person will dress a certain way; that he will look like he has not much, or that his hair will be loaded with oil, and his sense of fashion will be old or particularly out of place. If anything, this person will be an ordinary person, cheerful, able to have a conversation with you by being interested in you and not himself. He will have the gift of being self-forgetful. That is, he will not be all about himself. In so doing, he will value others greater than himself.

Therefore, friends, let us do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility, let us value others as more significant than ourselves.

Sixth, those in authority must exercise authority over their subordinates. If they practice undue humility, it will impair their ability to govern.[6] Consider others more significant than yourself does not mean that you may not issue orders, correct wrongdoing, recalibrate misunderstandings, etc.

Seventh, Christian humility is a virtue. It regards mainly about man’s subjection to God. It is for God’s sake that the Christian subjects himself to others. Because he is humble before God, in humility, he values others as more significant than himself. He does that out of reverence for God and not some gifting or ability in the other person. I can obviously remark that such and such a person is a better baker than me or a better cook than me. That is not Christian humility; that is plain fact. I can look to a Christian in their eyes, a Christian whose sin is plain to me, and I am aware that it is very ugly, and I can still value them as more significant than myself in relation to God’s work in me and in them. Also, I can say “I am the chief of sinners” while considering other greater than me. However, it would be absurd to say, “no, not me… you are the chief of sinners.” That is neither humility nor sensibility.

[1] Aquinas, STh., II-II q.162 a.7 ad 1 (The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province [Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1273; repr., Christian Classics, 1981], 1714).

[2] Aquinas, STh., II-II q.161 a.5 resp. (Summa Theologica, 1706).

[3] David Mathis, Humbled: Welcoming the Uncomfortable Work of God (B&H, 2021), 8.

[4] Mere Christianity (1952; HarperOne, 2001), 127.

[5] These are mostly lifted from C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity, 125–28.

[6] Augustine, Ep. 211.14 (The Confessions and Letters of St. Augustin with a Sketch of His Life and Work, vol. 1 of A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series [Christian Literature Company, 1886], NPNF 1\1:568).